


Belong

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Heliotrope [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alec is a little OOC because TRAUMA, Author is a madwoman, Bad Parent Robert Lightwood, Discrimination Against Downworlders, Downworlder Dad Magnus Bane, Good Parent Maryse Lightwood, Language of Flowers, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Child Loss, Mentions of Past Abuse/Neglect, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, a03 is eating my tags, don't ask just read it, just to be clear, mentions of AIDS/HIV crisis, no beta we die like men, not a human!au, remember please that my firsts are my worsts, the tattoo shop/flower shop au no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: If his client got quite a bit more than a simple cover of the scar from the emergency C-section; if Magnus's magic softened the edges of the hole of grief she had fallen into, just enough that she could find some peace with her own body once more--well, Magnus made a note that, Shadowhunters be damned, the little flower shop down the street was worth the risk.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Alec Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Alec Lightwood & Maryse Lightwood, Catarina Loss & Madzie, Magnus Bane & Alec Lightwood & Madzie, Magnus Bane & Maryse Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Heliotrope [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692241
Comments: 13
Kudos: 224





	Belong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [giidas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giidas/gifts).



> Blame [Katka](https://giidas.tumblr.com/), my freaky darlings. This is ALL her fault.

With the sheer amount of power he had, Magnus Bane knew that he could not stay permanently under the radar of the New York Institute. 

He did not--not _ever_ \--flaunt his power. He knew what that would get him in this world of Shadowhunters having the final say. It would get him locked in a cell, stripped of every inch of humanity he had, and his power trapped beneath his skin, buzzing to get out like an implacable sense of danger triggering the flight. 

The club was easy enough. He was notorious in the Downworld, after all; opening a club that welcomed that sort of clientele to neutral ground was a dangerous move for keeping out of the crosshairs of the Institute--but Magus was very good at walking the line between daring fate and actively forcing its hand. 

With the amount of power he had, Magnus needed an output--even if it was small. So the tattoo parlour was the next best choice. 

He'd played for decades with the idea of using potions in inks to extend the use of them. Once he'd cracked that, there was next to nothing he couldn't do. 

Most of his clientele in the parlour were mundanes that had no idea about the magic that was actually redolent on the air with the scent of sandalwood. They came because they knew someone who knew someone whose tattoo had been beautiful beyond belief--and whose life had somehow changed for the better, in having acquired it. 

Magnus specialized in colour, of course; the magic pushed into the act of inking the skin offered him bursting vibrant life into whatever design had been chosen. That he was also incredibly good with scar tissue meant that, more often than not, the requests he received were so deeply personal that he couldn't help but feel like something of an intruder on the lives of the people who came to his chair. 

Magnus himself did not sport visible tattoos; he wore collared shirts and long pants, the majority of his skin covered; and what his newer clients made of a man tattooing them who did not have visible art himself, well...either they got over it, or got out. 

"I...I need to cover up--" The woman before him was drawn, pale in a way that spoke of a grief that could not be undone with something so base as simply burying it. "I lost...I lost my baby. They h-had to..." 

Magnus reached towards the woman, and she let him take her small, cold, and trembling hand in his. She managed the weakest smile Magnus had ever seen as he handed her a tissue, and Magnus knew that though there was very little he would be able to pour into the wound to seal it, he would do anything she asked for in order to try. "What did you have in mind?" 

"A-A daisy. Maybe a bouquet of them? I...Her name--" 

"What colour would you like?" Magnus asked softly when no more words were forthcoming, easing as smoothly as he could around the choking grief. "I think white might work well." 

He'd created, just that morning, a white ink that allowed the tattoos it created to be opalescent. The potion he had created it with was a mild antidepressant, and Magnus could think of nothing more fitting for what little help he could offer a woman in the throes of something so monumental. 

After tearful thanks, Magnus made the proper appointments. 

Magic itched under his skin at the raw emotion that he'd been swimming through with that consult. He had the better part of an hour before his next appointment; a touch-up for a starlet whose chosen koi had somehow led her, nearly overnight, onto Broadway and, rumour had it, a coming movie deal. 

Rather than what he would normally do with a flower request, Magnus found himself leaving the shop, a vague memory of a small florists down the lane. 

The bell above the door sounded like something otherworldly, even to Magnus, but the argument going on inside the shop quickly overrode the curiosity. 

"I wish I had been de-runed, Izzy!" The man's voice was raised, but there wasn't anger behind it; there was desperation. Magnus very nearly turned right back out of the shop, before he caught sight of the two having the fight that he'd now interrupted with the ringing of the bell. 

The woman was compact ferocity; beautiful in a way that would distract an unwary soul into stepping into traffic. But the man was even worse, in Magnus's estimation. 

Hazel eyes that were heavy with the lingering argument blinked at him twice, as if trying to blink away the threat of tears, and Magnus found himself suddenly wanting to stay, if only to forestall the argument that had been taking place. 

"Sorry," the man managed, and cleared his throat, straightening to an impressive height, and it was only then that Magnus realized how drawn into himself he had been in this argument; how small he had made himself, as if trying to escape what was coming for him. 

"Not at all. Forgive me for interrupting." Magnus replied easily. The man did not have the aesthetic of any Shadowhunter Magnus had had the displeasure of meeting, but the woman did without question, and Magnus briefly wondered if there was some sort of retirement program for the Nephilim, and came up with a blank. In a turtleneck that was taut over his broad shoulders, but loose enough around the rest of him to suggest being chosen for anonymity, the ruffled birdsnest of brown waves on top of the man's head only made him seem less and less like the often-bloodthirsty and nearly-indiscriminate terrors that Magnus had been careful to avoid. He looked, dare Magnus even think it?, _soft_. 

"I'll...We'll finish this later, Alec." The woman Magnus had to assume was Izzy murmured. The purse of her mouth was not directed at Magnus, he could somehow tell, but Magnus was utterly curious as to just what he'd managed to accidentally stumble into. 

"Again, I am sorry." The man, Alec apparently, apologized. He looked more agonized than Magnus had thought he could handle after the consultation he'd just had, but there was no buzz of magic under Magnus's skin, not like there had been, and as the man stepped closer, Magnus found himself strangely more grounded than he had felt for a very, very long time. "I...I've seen you around. You work in the tattoo parlour down the street, right?"

Magnus jerked a nod, and the faintest hint of pink returning to Alec's cheeks easily beat out everything to be placed as the most adorable thing Magnus had ever seen. 

"Is there something I could help you with?" 

"You work here?" Magnus blurted the question before he could stop himself, and the shy cast that came to Alec's stunningly beautiful face made Magnus wish he were not about to swoon over someone even remotely connected to Shadowhunters. 

"I do." Alec replied, "Alexander Lightwood. You can...you can call me Alec, everyone does." 

"Magnus Bane." Magnus found himself shaking Alec's hand without the conscious command to do so. 

"O-Oh. You own the shop down the street." Alec corrected himself. 

"Yes, I do." 

"So...was there something I could help you with?" 

Alec and he had not let go of each other's hands, and Magnus did not want to realize that, because if he realized it, then it would inevitably have to end. "I...um. I just came from a consult with a client. She's requested a daisy. I wanted to--" 

"Visual aid?" Alec smiled slightly. "More commonly, daisies are innocence or purity--but it can also convey loyal love." 

Alec let go of his hand, and Magnus was somehow bereft beyond measure at the loss of that warm, strong grip. Stepping further into the shop, Alec gestured to a collection of daisies. 

"People think they're a common flower, but they couldn't have a more uncommon sentiment attached." 

Magnus was more than a little in awe of the man, even as he gave the tiniest of smiles and excused himself back to the counter. Staring at the delicate petals; the bright, happy shape of the bloom, Magnus felt a certainty click into place within him; his power at his fingertips, but banked and patient for once. 

If his client got quite a bit more than a simple cover of the scar from the emergency C-section; if Magnus's magic softened the edges of the hole of grief she had fallen into, just enough that she could find some peace with her own body once more--well, Magnus made a note that, Shadowhunters be damned, the little flower shop down the street was worth the risk. 

~

The next flower request was one that Magnus had never even heard of. The man who was getting it was little more than a boy, inking onto his skin the memory of a man he had loved, and lost to a plague that Magnus couldn't help but hate the mundanes for ignoring, just a little bit. 

AIDS and HIV, like most mundane afflictions, were not something that warlocks could catch. But Magnus had watched friends waste away, ignored or openly reviled, just as he had been for most of his life. 

It was a heaviness that had Magnus hesitating to go to the little shop. The echo of the battles Magnus had fought in trying to stop the massacre of his people was too close to the surface for Magnus to ever think that going back to a shop kept by a Shadowhunter would ever be a good idea. 

But he didn't know the flower the boy had asked for; didn't think for a second that to look it up on Google would be to do it justice for the kind of memorial that a request like this called for. A call to arms against the apathy and persecution, just as much as it was a reminder of the love lost. 

_"Dandy-Lion Florists', how can I help you?"_ The voice was hitched with the remnants of laughter, but it was Alexander, and Magnus felt something in his chest twist. 

"Uh, hi. You may not remember me, but I came in the other day to look at the daisies--" 

_"Magnus--uh, Mr. Bane--"_

"Oh, no, Magnus is more than good from where I'm sitting, _Mr. Lightwood_." 

_"R-Right. Right. So, what can I do for you, Magnus?"_

In his office, Magnus settled further into his chair, the pictures decorating his wall of the masterpieces he'd created giving him absolutely none of the swagger he could summon for literally any other thing. Magnus could almost hear Alec blushing over the phone, and he liked it more than he could ever allow. "I have another request from a client, but it's for a flower I've never heard of. Delphinium?" 

_"We have some. Would you like me to bring one over--"_

"No, no. I just wanted to check. If it's alright, I'll come by and buy myself a flower." 

_"Oh, okay. I'll try very hard to avoid getting into an argument with my sister before you come in."_

His sister, Magnus noted. They didn't exactly look like siblings, but Magnus knew plenty of siblings whom you could swear were related in absolutely no way. "I..." Magnus started when he realized the silence had gone on just a hair too long, "You wouldn't happen to know the meaning of delphinium, like you did with the daisies? I must confess, I did use what you said when my client came in. She--she needed someone else to know what it meant, beyond what it looked like." 

The change in demeanour of the conversation was palpable, even over the phone, and Magnus had only ever seen Alexander once, but he could swear he could almost see the man turn the full focus of his intensity on Magnus. _"I do know what they mean...Though I wouldn't think it'd be a choice for someone who has a need like the one you're describing. They signal big-heartedness, fun, lightness, and levity."_

Magnus's throat clicked, because of course the boy who had looked both so caged and so defiant had fallen in love with someone whose favourite flower had been everything that had been denied in their lives. "I..." 

_"Do they plan to get only one of the blooms, or the whole stem of them?"_ Alec asked softly, and there was a change in background noise; a softening to it that told Magnus that Alec had taken himself out of the view of the public to speak to Magnus like this, like he had the capacity, even as one raised a Shadowhunter, to care deeply about a stranger's choice in their time of need. 

"The whole stem, though I don't know what that looks like. I'm assuming rather like a lilac, just several blooms attached?" 

_"Something like that."_ Alec murmured, _"They're perennials. They fade, but they will come back, stronger than ever."_ The low, intimate timbre of Alexander's voice felt like something Magnus hadn't known he was missing. _"Did they choose a colour?"_

"No. He said that they're blue, but he didn't care which blue." 

Alec chuckled, _"Well, they're commonly blue, but pinks and purples aren't out of the question. Did you have a blue in mind? I'll put a few aside for you--they aren't hugely popular, but just for the...the ease of it."_

Magnus thought about the boy; his hunched shoulders almost reminiscent of the defeated posture he'd first seen Alec in, the army-green Henley he'd worn that was just a little too small, under a sweatshirt that had been several sizes too big. He knew the look of someone who had grown up in a place that had in no way accepted him for who he was; Magnus had worn that look for decades before he'd refused, summarily, to let his past define him anymore than it had to in order to keep him safe. This tattoo was a memorial, and a defiance, and Magnus knew what was needed, "The most vibrant shade of blue you have." 

~

Alexander Gideon Lightwood, the eldest in the latest generation of the Lightwood line, had been, however briefly, acting head of the New York Institute, or so the rumour went. 

It was common knowledge in the Downworld who the enemy was--but Alec had not, it seemed, proven himself to be an enemy. 

All the whispers Magnus had gathered in piecing together a picture of the handsome, apparently sweet man working down the street had had a grudging edge of as close to trust as the Downworld could offer a Shadowhunter. Alec had not been his parents, and Magnus wondered just what hell he must have suffered for daring that much. 

But what had caused Alec to suddenly and completely disappear from the world of Shadowhunting was a blank, even to the High Warlock, who worked closest with the Institute. 

"Alec," Maia's voice from the front counter was so surprised that even if he hadn't caught the name, Magnus would have been drawn to her side just from that. 

"Hi, Maia. How are you?" Alec sounded warm, and as Magnus passed from his office to the shop proper, he nearly fell over for shock when Maia, alpha of the New York pack, hugged Alec tightly. 

"I'm doing well." Maia answered softly. 

Magnus already knew that Maia did not know what had happened, just that there had been some sort of the trouble, bad enough that Alec had made the decision that he could no longer remain. Maia had been the one to tell him most about what Alec had been like as unofficial head of the Institute: how far he had gone to push back on the Clave; how he had fought for saving Downworlders just as hard as he had fought for saving mundanes. Seeing her hug him, Magnus got another piece to the puzzle: Maia, truly, trusted Alec Lightwood in whatever he had done. 

"Magnus!" Desperately clinging to the idea that Alec wasn't truly lighting up at the sight of him; just lighting up at an escape from walking memory lane, Magnus tried very hard to make sure that his smile did not show how genuinely happy he was to see Alec. 

Maia's look between them was enough to tell Magnus he'd failed spectacularly in some way, and Alec's joy glowed just a little less brightly as he seemed to steel himself for something. 

The flower looked...honestly, a little disarming. The sharp points of the petals and the strange mass of what Magnus assumed to be stamens made the thing look like a murderous sunflower, and that was not a comparison that Magnus would ever have thought himself capable of. "My...my parabatai, Jace Wayland, h-he wants a tattoo. I told him to come to you. This is what he wants." 

Magnus looked at Alec, brows knit, and Alec ducked his eyes, the flower still proffered in the air between them. 

"It's a King Protea. It stands for change; it symbolizes diversity and courage. He...he won't know what flower he wants, just that he wants something that means overcoming what's happened, and finding a new beginning." 

Magnus reached out hesitantly and took the flower, half-expecting to find that he'd be pricked by the thorn-like bumps on the stem. "I take it he isn't the kind to go for a butterfly to signal his new beginnings, then." Magnus managed, knowing that the words were the wrong ones, but at a complete loss for what the hell the right sentiments even were, let alone how to voice them. 

Alec's mouth twisted in a poor facsimile of his smile, his eyes still not looking at Magnus directly. "Um...I know that--I know that you don't want Shadowhunters near this place, and I wanted to tell you to expect him just in case you wanted to tell me to fuck off about this. But...Jace was de-runed," Maia took a sharp-ish breath from beside them, and Alec's gaze went to her, "he's no longer part of...of any of it. You won't get any attention from--" 

"Why me?" Magnus wanted the question back before it'd fully left his mouth, and Alec's lips pressed into a line, a slight fidget to his hand as he took a deep breath and steeled himself impossibly more. 

"Because...you care about your clients. Jace--Jace is an asshole, but he's my brother. My parabatai. And because Jace...needs something to remind him of what's come before and what lies ahead, I want to make sure that he gets that reminder from someone that I...trust. Someone I know will understand the weight of what he wants put onto his skin." 

Magnus knew that Alec hadn't been de-runed from the snippet of argument he had first walked in on, but it was only now that he realized that Alec chose his wardrobe in order to hide the runes he apparently wanted gone. "Who is setting up wards for him?" 

Alec licked his lips, ducking his head, "I-I haven't asked anyone yet, and he won't..."

It was not something Magnus did; Magnus did not use his magic for or around anyone else, beyond what he could pour into his art. Everyone knew that. "Does he have a place already?" 

"N-No. He just got back." There was a drawn set to Alec's features that Alec had managed to hide very well until now, talking about the details of protecting his brother. Alec's hands were shaking, and he swayed just slightly on his feet, his breathing becoming slightly unsteady, and Magnus grabbed his hand, amazed that Alec obediently followed as Magnus pulled him into his office. Alec sat as if his strings had been cut, and Magnus accepted the cup of tea from Maia provided him before he shut the door, leaving her to continue running reception while he tried to keep a Shadowhunter from a panic attack. 

"Chamomile, lemon, and mint," Magnus told Alec in the same soft tones he would use on a frightened child. 

"I'm--I'm sorry." Alec managed, and Magnus kept his hand on Alec's when Alec took the cup of tea from him. 

"No, no, no, darling." Magnus murmured, and Alec took a small sip of the tea, his eyes closing for a second. Magnus knew, because he loved this particular tea when he couldn't sleep, that the strange sweetness of it was something of an instant balm. 

"I don't know how to help him," Alec whispered the admittance, the flood of shame on his face enough to have Magnus wanting to tear the Clave apart for whatever it had done to make this sweet man feel so helpless, "I _know_ him. I know he half-wishes a demon would come for him." Alec swallowed, his breath shaking still. 

"Alexander," Magnus could hear the way his voice caressed Alec's full name, and Alec sucked in a deeper breath in the wake of it, "if I'm not mistaken, you have subverted what I have to assume would be a self-destructive want for pain into becoming a touchstone symbol of finding a new path. I assume a part of why you've chosen to direct your parabatai to me for a tattoo is also because you know that I keep a clean shop, and you don't want Jace to go somewhere that could potentially make him sick." Alec's breathing stuttered, his eyes on Magnus's as he stuttered a nod. "That is quite a lot to be getting on with on its own. From what you say of Jace, I think I might know his type: I know it's not easy to be the rock that he needs you to be." 

Alec licked his lips, ducking his eyes to their hands on the teacup. 

"If, and hopefully when, Jace comes here, I'll make damn sure that I live up to your expectations, Alexander. And once you find him a place, I'll ward it for you." 

Alec's eyes shot back up to Magnus's and widened, "I can't ask you to do th--" 

"You aren't asking, darling, I'm offering." Magnus waved his free hand magnanimously, aware that Alec's hands were steadied, that he could take the hand steadying the teacup away. It wasn't a surprise, Magnus supposed, that Alec may have asked around about Magnus as much as Magnus had asked about him. With Maia actually hugging the man, he clearly had contacts that would be able to tell him that Magnus did not take clients looking for magic; did not offer his powers or his services as a rule. Magnus had trained, long and hard, to be a master at the magic he had; that much everyone in the Downworld somehow knew without knowing how they'd come about that knowledge. But asking Magnus to use that power was simply Not Done. 

Alec looked at Magnus as if he understood just what it meant that Magnus made the offer, when Magnus himself didn't quite understand why he was offering to protect someone close to this strange specimen of a Nephilim. "Magnus, thank you." 

~

"I'm looking for Magnus Bane?" Magnus had only heard her voice the once, but he'd made a point to remember both the faces and voices of any Nephilim he'd come across over the years, and in his digging about her brother, he'd found quite a bit of information on her. 

"You've found him," Magnus greeted smoothly, walls firmly in place. She could cause all manner of havoc on him and his businesses, and Magnus did not much fancy being run out of town because he'd broken his damn rules and gotten close enough for the Shadowhunters to want to take notice. "What can I do for you?" 

Isabelle's features were more open than her brother's were; and though she wore her beauty like a weapon, she held herself as if she had been made to be aware that a weapon was just about the only thing she would come to amount to. 

His regular receptionist, Dot, made herself scarce; knowing as well as any of them that Shadowhunters spelt trouble. 

"You're the one that came in..." Isabelle realized, and Magnus gave the smallest twitch of a nod. She shook herself, taking a deep breath and pushing out a sigh, her stance relaxing just enough to tell Magnus that a weapon was not all Isabelle wanted to be. "I'm sorry. Alec told me that you and this shop are off limits, but...Alec did not go into the shop for his shift today, he's not answering his calls or texts. Jace is out of town, or I'd get him to check the apartment. But with your wards...Alec warned me that brute-forcing my way past them would end poorly for me without an invitation from them, and I need to find my brother." 

Magnus ducked behind the counter, grabbing his coat. "I didn't know he and Jace were living together." The apartment Magnus had warded for Jace was tiny and decrepit, depressing enough that Magnus had seriously considered offering his spare room while they find something actually suitable for human habitation. But Jace had an independent streak larger than the Grand Canyon, and Magnus had come to realize that Jace having a different last name meant, too, that now that Jace was out of favour with the Clave, it was more than likely that his adoptive parents were not willing to help him out when he clearly needed it. 

"They don't exactly do it well, but Alec was living out of the backroom in the Lion--which would have made this hunt for him much easier." Isabelle fell easily into step with him as he strode out of the shop, knowing that while Dot may not have been visible, she had definitely been listening, and would take care of things for however long Magnus was gone. 

Magnus let the information that Alec had been living in the Dandy-Lion sit, focusing more on navigating through the relative crowd towards an alley that was reliably empty, Isabelle's brow furrowed in what Magnus could only assume was suspicion as he led her not in the direction of the apartment. 

Summoning a portal was the work of a finger-twitch, Magnus's magic agitated as he got the sense that he really ought to be worrying more about Alec than he did. Isabelle stepped through without a second's hesitation as to where it led, although this particular magic Magnus hadn't bothered to share widely, which once more brought the question of just who the Lightwood siblings were, to be capable of trusting that which they were raised to despise. 

"Do you have a key?" Magnus asked. Isabelle shrugged one shoulder, then reached up without a second's hesitation to slide the spare key from the top of the door to the apartment. "That...is not even remotely safe." Magnus sighed to himself. 

"Yeah, well, neither of them have anything worth stealing, and both of them have more than a little bit of a death-wish lately." Isabelle grit, and Magnus twisted the power of the wards around his hands, layering the protection to include Isabelle through without protest, even without the consent to enter of either of the occupants. Isabelle unlocked the door and strode in before Magnus could tell her it was safe; as if she'd felt the magic--as if Alec or Jace had told her what to expect to feel. "Alec?!" Isabelle's cry of her brother's name had Magnus over the threshold before he could stop himself, and when he caught sight of Alec, his magic was in his hands before he could even think. 

Slumped on the ground, just inches from a mattress neatly made on the floor, Alec lay unconscious. His face was a mass of swelling and bruising that had Magnus's magic surge with a vicious urge to hunt down the culprits and kill them; his arm cradled to his chest, even in unconsciousness, in such a way that Magnus suspected his arm had been broken. Dropping to his knees beside Isabelle as she tried to bring her brother to wake up, Magnus didn't ask; he simply pushed his power, fueled with the anger and the urge to protect, into healing Alec. 

Beside him, Isabelle went completely still, and Magnus knew that he was overdoing it; knew that a warlock who stayed as far under the radar as he did should not be showing a Shadowhunter that he had this much power, and they hadn't known. But it was Alec, who smiled sweetly when Magnus wandered into the flower shop asking about the most ridiculous bouquet requests they had ever gotten. It was Alec, who had had enough trauma to outwardly show signs of PTSD, but refused to let that slow him down. It was Alec, who Magnus was more than a little in love with; who treated Magnus's reticence and his mercurial moods on whether or not to trust him with patience and understanding. 

Alec woke up with a gasp, sitting up into Magnus's still-outstretched hand, and blinking only once before he pulled Magnus into his arms, hugging him tightly. Isabelle sat heavily on the floor from the crouch she'd maintained this whole time, and Alec started slightly at the noise, then reached for his sister's hand behind Magnus's back, not letting Magnus go. 

"What the hell happened, hermano?" Isabelle demanded breathlessly, as if she were the one that had used a massive amount of magic. 

Alec's throat clicked as he swallowed, but no words came. 

"Did something get through without breaching the wards?" Magnus asked, somewhat muffledly, his face tucked into Alec's shoulder. 

"No, no." Alec breathed, and all at once, he'd pulled away from them both; drawing into himself as if wishing he could hide. 

"What happened, Alec?" Isabelle asked, voice calculated to be clear and cutting. 

Alec swallowed again, his eyes lowering, and Magnus reached out, taking his hand and brushing his thumbs gently over the back. Alec startled slightly at the touch, so unused to affection that Magnus had to viciously tamp down his wrath at the very idea that Alec would be bereft of the care he needed. 

"I...Robert was waiting for me." Alec breathed, and Isabelle's entire demeanour changed; in place of the worried sister, there was a weapon that was all too willing to kill. 

"Who is Robert?" Magnus did not want his suspicion that it would prove to be Robert Lightwood confirmed, but the look Isabelle gave him told him all he needed to know. 

"He demanded that I...that I go back. Be Head of the Institute. Marry someone who will--" Alec sobbed a laugh, crumpling even further, and Isabelle schooled her features, both she and Magnus moving in unison to get closer to Alec, to hold him up if he'd let them. "Who will repair the family name." 

"He beat you." Isabelle surmised, and Alec flinched. 

"No," Alec breathed, tears on his cheeks now, his breathing edging towards panic attack. He looked at Isabelle dead on despite the rising undertow of anxiety and despair, "he ordered Raj and Hodge to." 

"You can't stay here," Magnus told him, voice clear but kind, "Isabelle, can you contact Jace, and tell him that he and Alec will be staying with me, please?" 

"You don't have to--" Alec cut off when Magnus held up a finger to his lips, the play of Alec's long lashes when he blinked down at it making Magnus ache with the need to have protected him.

"You're right, I don't have to. I want to." Magnus told him, dropping his voice as Isabelle swung herself to her feet, dialling Jace. "Now, just breathe with me for a minute, okay?" 

Alec didn't look away from Magnus as they sat trying to match Alec's breathing to his. Even as Isabelle began moving around the apartment, packing; even as it became easier, and his hands stopped shaking. Magnus kept rubbing gently over the hand he still held, the callouses telling him that Alec was an archer. 

When Alec excused himself to get changed into clothing that wasn't spattered with his own blood, Isabelle fell in beside Magnus, looking once again like she was ready to walk into war. "Magnus, this is dangerous. I didn't intend for you to stick your neck out like this--" 

"There's a reason I have worked so very hard to keep out of the Clave's line of sight, Miss Lightwood. I find I don't particularly care if keeping your brother safe means stepping into their crosshairs." 

"Thank you, Magnus. Thank you so much for taking care of Alec." She took his hand, and Magnus could actually feel her whole being gather attention on him, "I have a plan. And I am going to do everything in my power to keep you out of it. I will do everything in my power to keep you _safe_." Her lips quirked up, and she squeezed his hand, "Do you know what Alec told me, when I wondered how it was we ran in the same circles, but never heard even a whisper of you?" Magnus shook his head, frowning. "He told me that you take care of everyone. That you ask for nothing in return for it. So, when everyone else saw how badly you wanted to hide, they did everything they could to give that to you." 

Magnus swallowed, about to deny that he took care of anyone, really, but Isabelle's quirked mouth turned into a full smile. 

"Only once I knew whose name to use did Raphael tell me that you saved his life. And Maia that you let her pick up extra cash as a receptionist when she needs it. And Simon, and Catarina, and Dot, and Tessa..." Isabelle listed, squeezing his hand again, and beaming at him, "You're a force for good, Magnus. Unlike any other I've ever seen before." 

Alec emerged from the bathroom with wet hair, and the sharp scent of generic soap filled the tiny apartment as soon as the door opened. In the first uncollared shirt Magnus had ever seen him wear, a deflect rune stood stark on Alec's neck; and Magnus realized that though he had known that Alec still had his runes, he'd never thought to wonder which ones, and where they'd been put. 

"Ready?" Magnus asked gently. 

Alec ducked his head, and Magnus wasn't sure if it was shyness or some sort of misplaced shame that kept him from actually looking at Magnus most of the time. "I--I really don't want to im--" 

"Alexander," Magnus put on a voice that could command attention even in a riot, and Alec straightened as if there'd been an electrical shock, "it would impose upon me more knowing that you are somewhere unsafe than it ever will to have you under my roof. I'm more than a little fond of you, and I refuse to give anyone or anything an easy time of it to get to you." 

Alec's cheeks and ears probably heated the room by a few degrees, but with Magnus's cards on the table to his sister, Magnus refused to allow himself to try to hide from Alec just how much he was held in regard. 

Clearing his throat, Alec reached for the bags Isabelle had left by the door, and Magnus summoned the portal, almost smiling at the flash of longing he felt for the days when two portals and as comprehensive a healing as he'd performed would have made rather a large dent in his well of power. 

~

Three days into their new living arrangements, Magnus found himself idly searching ways to help Alec's post-traumatic stress disorder. 

In part, Magnus knew enough of the shape of the Lightwood family dynamic that he wasn't surprised that Alec was nearly obsessive about making sure that he took up as little space as possible. It was like Magnus's heart broke with every beat: to know that, more than likely, Alec had grown up in a situation where making himself as low-maintenance as possible had been the only option. The look of pain that had crossed Alec's face when Magnus had come to pick Alec up from work had been devastating; Alec did not want to take up Magnus's time, or his space, and it was all Magnus could do to stop himself from hunting down Robert Lightwood himself. 

But when Alec began picking at his hands; when Magnus heard his panic attacks hit in the night; when the heartbreak of it got to be too much, Magnus started searching. 

There was some truth to what Isabelle had charged him with: the Downworlders who knew him only half-jokingly called him 'Dad'. Magnus knew it was an issue of his own, this need to care for others to the point where he could barely find meaning in himself if it was not in the service, however small, of someone he loved. But if he could find a way to help Alec, then having the past that had forced him to acquire that view of himself would be made worth it. 

"When was the last time you just let yourself have fun?" Magnus asked, leaning against the counter in the work room of the Lion, watching Alec very deftly curl book pages into ribbon for a wedding bouquet with the flat of a knife. 

"You've been talking to Izzy." Alec accused flatly, pausing to shoot him an unimpressed look that had Magnus snorting into laughter. 

"So _both_ of the brilliant and talented creatures in your life have been trying to encourage you to loosen up a little! We are wise, you should really listen to us." Magnus teased back, and Alec huffed, shaking his head. 

"Izzy used that line when she wanted to drag me into coming clubbing with her." Alec sighed, setting the knife down and turning to face Magnus, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers as he squinted suspiciously. 

"I do not want to take you clubbing. You would be eaten alive." Magnus scoffed. "Though I would not mind having a smaller dance party. You seem like you could cut a rug if you really wanted to." 

"So what is it you're angling for?" 

"I don't know. A movie? Something too horrible to watch alone, just so you have someone to mock it with?" 

"Which movie?" Alec was smiling the tiny smile that Magnus would swear was only ever directed at him.

"Hm, well now, you have appalling taste in everything but friends, so I should be careful what I cast as being horrible--it might be your favourite." 

Alec's smile slipped a little and he shifted back towards his work before admitting softly, "No, probably not. There...there was never much time to watch movies. I...never really bothered." 

Magnus managed not to growl at the reminder that Alec had not been allowed a childhood, letting out a high hum of interest instead. "Well this opens a whole new dilemma for me, Alexander. Because if I throw you in the deep end of the truly terrible movies, we may never make our way to any good ones." 

Alec shook his head, and Magnus told himself it was with fondness. He picked himself off the worktable, headed back towards the front and to go back to work, when Alec's hand caught his wrist in the gentlest of touches. When Magnus turned around, Alec looked practically constipated in the mixture of determination and shyness. Determination won out, though, and Magnus barely got to glimpse the flower crown in Alec's other hand before he was placing it delicately on Magnus's head, and grinning. "There. I'm having fun already." 

Magnus didn't take the crown off until he absolutely had to, and it only occurred to him to try to Google the meaning of gardenias as he was leaving to pick Alec up with the crown back in place, his magic singing under his skin as it preserved the flowers as perfect as they were. 

~

Magnus hadn't pressed either of the Lightwood siblings as to just where Jace had gone for the two weeks he'd been absent, but when he rolled back into town, Magnus could practically feel the shift in Alexander; as if the reappearance of his brother had reminded him of all the walls that Magnus had been working on tearing down. 

The colour-work on the King Protea adorning Jace's left side had put Magnus and Jace one-on-one for the first time since the change of living situation, and Magnus couldn't help but feel a bit of trepidation about it. 

"I...I'm sorry I wasn't here when Alec...needed me." Jace began, managing to impress even in his apology just how rare it was for him to apologize. He'd stripped off his shirt, and while Magnus had been academically aware that no marks would be left from the runes that had vanished, he had still somehow been surprised. 

"I think it might have been for the best," Magnus admitted after a moment, "because if you'd been there, what would you have done?" 

"If they'd activated their runes? I may have gotten a few punches in, but they wouldn't have stopped with a beating." Jace eyed Magnus where he inspected the line-work he'd done previously, making sure there was nothing he needed to change before he started the colour. "You haven't asked." 

It was not quite an accusation and it left Magnus considering. He could ask Jace all the questions he wanted to ask Alec, but was too worried about the trauma to bring up. He could see if Jace knew of any ways that he had found to help Alec with dealing with the trauma. But he also knew that while Alec trusted him implicitly, Jace was nowhere near ready to let any of his guards down. 

"Actually, I'm more interested in just how the hell your brother is a walking dictionary for the language of flowers." Magnus settled on, and Jace's eyes crinkled slightly in response, the smile barely touching his lips. 

"Alec believes in mastering a thing before he'll think of moving on to anything else," Jace told him, and when Magnus didn't bat an eye at the apparent non-sequitur, but continued to wait for more, he sighed, "when Izzy and Alec were very young children, before I ended up the Lightwoods, the house they lived in had a small garden. Maryse and Robert were not the kind people that would take care of a garden...but Alec and Izzy were young, and they would go out and play. And one day, Izzy found a small yellow flower, and pulled it from the garden. She almost died.

"Alec researched everything to do with medicines and poisons in plants. Eventually he was reading about the meanings of the flowers. He's patient--He's good at getting things to grow, because he's patient." Magnus hummed, and in choosing not to speak again, it was as if a dam had ruptured in Jace, "We worked so well because he was patient, and I was impulsive. I sped him up and he slowed me down and together we evened each other out." 

As Magnus worked, Jace danced around everything but what had happened to get him de-runed; to have Alec struggling so badly. "Have either of you...trained together? Since...?" Magnus finally brought himself to ask, when Jace seemed to be getting lost in the memories he was telling, of Alec being the rock of the family; of Alec being the leader, even though he never thought he could be and didn't want to acknowledge all he did to deserve that title. 

Jace didn't quite flinch, but it was a near thing. "How am I supposed to do that now?" 

"There's a gym in our building," Magnus told him steadily, the tone of Jace's voice edging towards lashing out, "and physical activity helps with the panic, or so I've read." 

Jace managed, though hell knew how, to flinch only the upper part of his torso, keeping steady under Magnus's work. "He...he needs it, doesn't he?" 

"To be honest with you, Jace, I don't know what he needs. But you and I both know, I think, that he can't push himself through this on his own forever." 

Jace was quiet then, contemplative, and Magnus felt his magic tingle at his fingertips, pushing slightly, and though the potions Magnus had used for the ink were deterrents for demons, Magnus was a little at a loss for what his magic could possibly want him to add for the ex-Shadowhunter. 

"I'll ask him to train." Jace told him quietly, head bowed as he sat back up and accepted a tub of the aftercare lotion Magnus had specially brewed for him. "He hates asking for help--hates asking for anything. But I know...I know he really likes you. You make him feel safe. Hell, you make me feel safe. You've done so much for us--" 

Magnus held up a hand to stay the flow of words, "This is no more than I would do for anyone I consider a friend, suffering as you two have been. I...know that the support system you had, that you grew up in, has vanished beneath you. But if you'll let me, I'd like to help you build one that never will." 

Jace stared at him for a long moment, a question written in his eyes, but not yet aired. "Why were you...in hiding?" 

Magnus took a deep breath, "I'm a lot more powerful than I would like anyone to know. And if I were on the radar of the Clave..." 

"Then you'd never have any peace." Jace's agreement was strained with the pain of having been put through whatever the Clave had put him through. 

"The Clave likes to forget that the Downworlders are, largely, immortal. And that what they treat as ancient history is the matter of a blink of an eye for some of us. I...I watched too many powerful warlocks get hunted down for no reason other than that they were more powerful than the Clave thought it prudent to allow freedom." 

Jace was staring at him, the look of banked anger much like the one Isabelle had worn in the apartment. "And let me guess...they used the excuse that the hunters they sent after those warlocks, that the warlocks may have been forced to go on the offensive against, were victims?" 

Magnus didn't bother to confirm, and his silence was confirmation enough for Jace, who let out a growl that had even Magnus impressed. 

"Alec was working...so hard, to try to find a better way." Jace breathed, sounding like he was somewhere on the cusp of either screaming his rage, or bursting into tears at his losses. "They tried to undo everything he did, at every turn. Alec would make inroads to friendship with the werewolves, and the Clave would send an out-of-town group of Shadowhunters to try to blunder their way into enmity. And then they decided that Alec was making too nice with the Downworld...and they sent in a new Head of Institute. And he insisted that Alec and I take him on a patrol as a show of good-will, an easing of the transition..." Magnus swallowed, keeping his hands on the tattoo gun that he had been getting ready to clean. "Alec's chosen weapon was a bow. Most archers let their hand-to-hand suffer because they have people on the front line to work with them--" Jace broke off, a strangled sound of pain escaping him, and Magnus drew a sip of breath, tasting the curl of his own angry magic like brick dust and ozone. 

"But Alec believes in mastering a thing before he'll move on to anything else." Magnus supplied softly. Jace looked at him, the desolation on his face complete, and Magnus could piece together the rest; that the replacement head of Institute, who was no longer the head, had claimed that he couldn't have known, and Jace, impulsive Jace, had more than likely killed him for trying to kill his parabatai. 

"He was injured. Badly enough that even with all the healings we could give him, there's still scar tissue. I haven't asked him to train...really because I don't want to remind either of us of everything that happened. But also, because I think it hurts him to move, sometimes. The scars are on his back and his leg...He gets? He gets stiff, sometimes." 

Magnus nodded his understanding, laying a hand on Jace's arm to draw him back to the here and now and meeting his surprised gaze with a steadiness and calm that Magnus could barely feel under the roil of his rage. "I'll do everything I can to help with that. Scars are difficult...there's a rune, I believe, that could heal a scar once it was old enough, and my magic isn't exactly made for healing...but I healed your brother once before, and I'll do my best to do it again." 

Jace lifted his arms, hesitating slightly, before reaching out to actually hug Magnus. "I'm sorry for pouring all this out. This can't have been an easy appointment for you." 

Magnus sighed softly, forcing a slight smile onto his lips, hoping he managed a teasing glint in his eyes, "No, but this is by far not the worst. Worst was the business man who, for two consults was completely put-together and sane...then came to the actual appointment with, I shit you not, a vodka-soaked tampon shoved up his ass so that he could get progressively more drunk as the appointment progressed. And he? Managed to be both handsy and belligerent." Jace was snorting, the tears that had threatened to fall for the pain of the past making wet smudges as he laughed like it was being punched out of him. 

~

"I need a flower that means friendship and support, preferably a pink one." Magnus put on a put-upon note to his voice, "SOMEhow I've managed to get a reputation for my flowers." 

Alec laughed in whispers, the sounds of the shop nearly enough to drown it out as he tried to hide that he was openly laughing at Magnus's perceived plight. _"Oh, but I like your flowers._ Alec teased, voice dropped low. He couldn't go to the back room with people in the shop, but he was trying to keep the phone conversation as private as he could, and Magnus felt himself fall a little more in love with him for it. _"Tell me the story behind it?"_

"Breast cancer survivors. They met in chemo." 

_"So it needs to be something absolutely lovely."_ Alec's voice had increased slightly in volume, a sign that he wasn't paying enough attention to what he was saying while his mind was busy flipping through all the possibilities. _"I think I have a few options in mi--Mom."_

Magnus was off his office chair and headed out the door before Alec had even ended the call, practically running even as Dot and Maia yelled after him about his next appointment waiting. 

The bell above the door to the Lion chimed as Magnus practically tripped over the threshold, and Magnus caught sight of Alec by the counter separating the main shop from the back working area, the phone still pressed to his ear as he stared at the woman before him. 

She was alone, that much was clear; the two other young women mundanes in summer dresses despite the lingering chill of the spring. They seemed to sense that something was very wrong very quickly, and they passed Magnus to leave with wide eyes and pale faces. Magnus locked the door behind them, flipping the sign to Closed. 

"M-Mom..." Alec stuttered, his hand shaking as he lowered the phone. "What are...what are you doing here?" 

Alec tore his eyes from his mother for the barest of moments to flick to Magnus, and Magnus watched his hand shift as if reaching for him. He was by Alec's side in a heartbeat, taking his hand, and if Maryse Lightwood had anything to say about her son needing the support of a warlock to talk to her, she was going to be met with a brick wall. 

Her eyes were like Isabelle's; Alec's a warm hazel where theirs were a far darker shade of brown. She and her daughter looked much alike, really; the same fierce beauty worn in the same way. She glanced from Magnus's hand in Alec's to Magnus himself, her eyes speaking a pain that Magnus wasn't feeling charitable enough to analyze just then. 

"I came to see you, Alec. I...I will not ask you to come back. Your sister has...told me...about what happened. I wanted to apologize. For pressuring you to come back in the first place." 

There were tears caught in her eyes, and Magnus realized that the beauty she was wearing like a weapon was the only shield she had at this point. "I...thank you." Alec looked about as stunned as one could get, and Magnus watched the hesitancy that he had in putting any stock that this was not a manipulation of some form. "This...Mom, this is Magnus Bane, he's been--he's been letting Jace and I live with him. Magnus, this is my mother, Maryse Lightwood." 

At the mention of her own last name, she flinched, but she reached her hand to shake Magnus's, a look of honest thanks on her features as he shook. "I have you to thank, for keeping my boys safe." 

"I'm happy to help Alexander in any way I can." Alec's hand squeezed his own in silent thanks and acknowledgement that in doing this, Magnus was doing just that. 

Maryse licked her lips when they released their hold, a mirror to the habit Alec had. She blinked and looked around the shop, a hint of a smile curling at her mouth, "I won't linger here, I know you have to get back to work. I would like...to properly talk to you, if you can. I...I understand if you don't--and I'd be happy to meet you somewhere, if you're not comfortable...letting me know where you live. I _understand_ , and I would kill your father if I could lay my hands on him--" Maryse cut herself off, jolting slightly as if electrocuted, and she turned apologetic eyes on Alec, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't mention him. Not here, not now." 

There was an intense pride in Magnus as Alec slowly reached his free hand to take one of his mother's. "I think...we do need to talk. Can you do that and handle Magnus hearing it?" 

Maryse blinked in shock, looking at Magnus and then back to Alec, "Of course. I...I don't--I can't care anymore, what the Lightwood family name means to anyone, Alec. Not after what happened. Not after what your father _did_. And Magnus has been dragged into all this. If he's willing to sit through more of it--if you can sit through more of this mess, all I can do is thank you further. You have done so much more than--" 

A tear fell, and Maryse swiped at her eyes, looking disappointed in herself for letting it go. "I should not be crying in front of you." She cleared her throat, and straightened her spine, and Alec's hand slid from Magnus's with a small squeeze, his movements slow and telegraphed as he reached forward, sliding off the stool he'd been sitting on to stand and fold his mother into a hug. 

"If you need to cry, then cry. There's no shame in that." Alec told her, voice small and kind as he murmured those words to her, a small smile on his mouth as he looked at Magnus, who had told him that exact thing just days ago. Alec made sure he had Magnus's eye, then pointedly glanced across the shop, at an array of pink flowers. Magnus tilted his head, eyebrows pulled slightly, and Alec smiled, mouthing to him "what you were looking for". 

Taking that as his cue to give mother and son a little space, Magnus obediently wandered towards the display, the card naming the flowers reading in the looping scrawl Magnus had been helping Alec to perfect from his normally-spidery handwriting: 'Alstroemeria, Peruvian lily'. 

Picking up a stem of them, the tips of the speckled petals white, slowly fading into a soft fuchsia, Magnus turned to Alec, who still held his mother, smiling with all the love for this gentle man that he had in him.

~

It had been more than a month since Magnus had last set foot in his own club, and though Pandemonium did not in any way need him to keep going, he considered it bad business sense not to check in on things when he was, technically, available to do so. 

He'd spoken to Alec about going out, making the offer even though he thought it would be a terrible idea for Alec to go anywhere near a place as loud and crowded as his club; and Alec had seemed to sense that, smiling softly at him, and politely declining. It had taken Magnus only a minute of debate before he'd texted Isabelle that he'd be going out, and she should, perhaps, invite herself over for some quality time with her brother, rather than allowing Alec to hide himself away for the night. 

He was almost ready when a soft knock on his bedroom door announced that Alec was on the other side: Jace just burst in, and Magnus had been told, through bouts of Alec's laughter after Jace had walked in on Magnus doing yoga naked and had shrieked like a little girl, that he'd been doing that, regardless of what was waiting on the other side of that door, for years. 

"Come in." Magnus called, taking a minute to make sure he was presentable for his club. 

When he emerged from his walk-in closet, securing his earring, Alec's breath audibly caught, his eyes wide and cheeks flushing as he took Magnus in. 

"Everything okay?" Magnus asked when Alec seemed to be completely stalled, beginning to wonder if he looked that good, or if Alec's sensibilities had been just that mortified at seeing him in leather pants, silver eyeliner, and glitter over his cheekbones. 

Alec swallowed, and he tore his eyes away from their roving over Magnus's outfit to firmly plant themselves on his own feet. "I-uh...it's silly, it won't go with your--" 

"Alec?" Magnus urged softly, strolling over to him and reaching to take the hand that Alec had mostly-hidden behind his back. 

Cradled in Alec's large palm, a black Indonesian orchid buttonhole sat, petals as soft as ever, yet the colour of the bloom somehow implying that it was more dangerous than it looked. Magnus gasped, his grip on Alec's forearm tightening as he bounced slightly in excitement.

"That's gorgeous!" The enthusiasm took Alec by surprise, and his flush deepened, ears turning red, too. "Is that for me?" 

Alec smiled, the small one; the private one. His long fingers were deft as he raised the bloom to the buttonhole Magnus thankfully had on this jacket; the midnight blue velvet shot with silver silk all the more vibrant in colour with the black bloom to set it off. "I...It's silly, but we just got the orchids in, and the supplier mentioned that Indonesian orchids are particularly tricky--and I knew you were...from Indonesia, originally, and I--" 

"Alexander," Magnus interrupted softly, only barely hesitating before he laid a hand over Alec's heart, hazel eyes meeting his in a way that made Magnus feel as if he could quite happily fall into never looking away. Alec licked his lips, his smile hesitant and soft. Magnus felt the words at the back of his throat, clawing to come out despite the worry that Alec did not, in fact, feel for him as he did for Alec. Worry that Alec would accept his advances because Alec hadn't had much call for affection in his life before Magnus stumbled into it, and wouldn't know better than to say that romance was not what he wanted if faced with the possibility that Magnus would stop showing him that affection. Worry that he would lose this man, who had taken the time to learn the language of flowers despite the pressure put upon him to be a soldier and a continuation of the line, and nothing more. 

Alec's hand fluttered slightly before alighting on Magnus's cheek, just shy of the line of glitter, the warmth and strength of it making it all the more difficult not to tell Alec how badly Magnus wanted to kiss that soft smile. 

The smile turned into a grin that was just as soft, and Alec's breath caught and held as he shifted from looking down at Magnus to raising just enough to press his lips, so delicately, to Magnus's forehead. 

"Have fun tonight." Alec murmured, his fingers trailing over the collar of Magnus's shirt, the touch to the back of Magnus's neck zinging down his spine with the need for _more_. 

The touch was nearly meditative as Alec trailed his fingers from Magnus's collar, across the line of his shoulder and down his arm, taking the hand Magnus still had resting on Alec's chest. He raised the hand like a courtier, kissing Magnus's second knuckles with a softness that was somehow anything but chivalrous. 

Alec gave his fingers one last squeeze, as if he hadn't just entirely shut down Magnus Bane to the autonomic functions, and went to answer the door for his sister. 

~

Alec had stopped dead in the kitchen, his mouth dropped open as he listened to his sister on the other end of the phone call. 

"Magnus!" Alec half-yelled, and even if Magnus hadn't been just a few feet from him; even if he'd been in his sound-proofed apothecary, Magnus knew he would have heard that call for him. 

"What is it?" 

"There's been a--a kidnapping. A warlock child's been taken. Isabelle says that Catarina Loss and Lorenzo Rey can't get near her because she's seen them working with the Shadowhunters...Would you be willing to try?" Magnus was nodding even as Alec hesitated slightly over asking the question, and Alec grabbed his hand, telling Isabelle that they were coming even as they half-ran towards Alec's bedroom, his bow and quiver in his hands as Magnus opened the portal. Magnus threw a look from the weapon to him, and Alec's serious expression began to storm over with controlled anger as well, "She suspects there's still at least one more of the kidnappers, and I'm not letting you go in without anyone to watch your back." 

Magnus took Alec's hand again, trusting in what he'd taught Alec of the portal magic to allow Alec to direct them where they needed to go without Alec needing to tell him. 

They were a ways away from the actual building that held the interest of the Shadowhunters, and Isabelle turned into the alley like a shadow disappearing in the dark of night. "Thank you for coming, Magnus. The little girl's name is Madzie, she's four. We don't want to hurt or detain her, but the people who grabbed her have been using her powers to do a lot of damage. Them, we need to neutralize." Isabelle looked grim, "So far, all the kidnappers have been mundane." Isabelle glanced at her brother, then the bow in his hands, his quiver already in place. She nodded to him once, "The archer we have is nowhere near as good as you, hermano. Find a place, and if he's already there, I'll order him away. As far as I'm concerned, we don't need an archer." She winked, and Alec huffed as close to a laugh as he was going to get, looking from the building the team of Shadowhunters was paying attention to to the buildings from which he could take position. "As far as we can tell, Madzie and the final kidnapper are in the northeastern side of the building." 

Magnus summoned another portal, hoping that it would prove to be far enough away from Madzie and her captor to allow him not to scare the little girl. Alec indicated which vantage point he'd take, and Magnus opened a portal for him as well with barely a thought, anxious to save this little girl, and anxious to get Alec out of this echo of his trauma. 

Alec caught his arm as he moved to step through, sharing a look with him that was, all at once _be safe_ , _I have your back_ , and _come back to me_. 

Magnus could only nod, aware that he could not allow his first kiss with Alec period, let alone in front of his sister. "You, too, Alexander." 

Taking a deep breath of relief when the room he portalled into proved to be empty, Magnus felt something else settle within him, a sense of protection wrapping him up from worrying about what would prove to happen. 

It had been a long time since Magnus had been in a situation that called for it, but the ghost of Magnus's past was never far behind, and his instincts had never left him. There were demons pouring into the hall beyond the door of the room he'd portalled into, but the moment they burst through that door, the ones in the lead dissolved to smoke and ichor with nothing more than a twitch of his magic, the power uncoiling itself within him like temptation itself as he strode forward.

It had taken him years to train himself to bury the amount of power he had deep enough that he could hide it. When Magnus Bane had killed his father, the throne of Edom and all of its attendant powers had come to her rightful King. It was a shame that Magnus had not known whether he could bear to ever be learned; that he was, by rights, a Prince of Hell, when anyone that had learned of his lineage as the son of one had, to a person, shown only greed for his power or disgust for where his power came from. 

The hall he strode through had no windows, Magnus was relieved to note: As he neared the northeastern corner of the building, the part of him that hated his power just as much as everyone else had hoped, viciously, that in doing this, Alec would be none the wiser. 

The magic of the rift tasted of acid and bile as Magnus towards it. It was not Edom on the other side of the rift, but another of the planes of Hell. With it not being Edom, closing it took longer than Magnus liked, but his magic was roiling within him, undaunted and terrifyingly gleeful at finally being used. 

With the rift gone, Magnus could better sense the magic being used in the room behind it, and the knowledge of what was being done had Magnus's ire rearing uncontrollably. 

The snap of his power blew the doors off their hinges, splintering into the room as Magnus took in the scene before him. 

Madzie was small and scared, the room shaking with her fear, the warlock that she had gone with; the one working with the mundanes, holding an athame, a ritual circle drawn out in blood beneath them. 

Magnus could not kill the warlock within the circle without the magic of the circle killing Madzie as well: the spell to pull power from the child into the older warlock too far into the process to do so without first breaking the connection. 

"Madzie," Magnus called, dropping to one knee. Madzie had had to be willingly put into the circle, and Magnus knew enough about what his father had done in creating this abhoration of magic to know that she did not have to know what the spell entailed to be drawn into the circle. Magnus dropped the glamour from his eyes, one arm extended towards her in beckoning, even as the fingers of the other pressed into the ground, pushing magic into the very foundations of the building to force it to crack beneath them. It was not something Magnus wanted to do; the pain of breaking the circle would be terrible for all three of them, but if it was Magnus Madzie was more scared of than the athame, then he would have to hope she would come to forgive him for putting her through it. 

It was only barely a second between Magnus calling her name, and Madzie looking from him, to her captor, and making the decision to run. Magnus felt the swell of the captor's power even as Madzie launched herself out of the circle towards him, and in the split second her feet hit the ground outside of the circle, effectively breaking the bond that would have stolen her powers, there was suddenly an arrow protruding from the captor's neck. 

Madzie ran into Magnus's waiting arms, and before she could realize anything more, Magnus opened a portal to the roof he'd sent Alec to, taking them both through it without turning so that Madzie could not see the death of her captor. 

Alec's bow and quiver weren't to be seen as Magnus and Madzie appeared, but the rune on his neck had Madzie squirming into Magnus in fear once more. 

"Madzie, my name is Magnus Bane. This is my friend. I trust him. You can trust him, too. He helped me to get you out of there. I swear to you, you're safe." 

Alec stayed where he was, hands up and palms out. 

Magnus knelt, putting her back on the ground and letting her far enough to look at him again, but not far enough to give her the chance to run away. "Do you know what that spell was?" Madzie's rabbit-fast breathing caught and she shook her head. 

"'S dangerous." Madzie panted, "He said it wasn't. Said it would let me see Nana. He lied." 

Tears were on the edge of falling, and Magnus released his hold so that instead of stopping her escape, he could offer her the comfort she needed. As Madzie fell back into his arms, Magnus watched Alec texting furiously. Magnus had no doubt that Madzie's Nana would prove not to be with them anymore. 

Alec looked up after a moment and shook his head, and Magnus took a deep breath, gently shifting Madzie back to look up at him. As he cleared her tears away with gentle touches, Magnus made his offer, "The High Warlock is down there. He can take you somewhere safe. Or, you can come with Alec and I. He and his brother live with me. But there is always room for one more." 

Madzie turned enough to look over her shoulder at Alec, still sitting on the ledge, his fingers knit, hands empty, in front of him. Alec was watching Magnus, the small smile tracing his mouth, and Magnus had a sneaking suspicion that that smile, more than anything else, was what decided Madzie. "I...I want to go with you." 

Magnus nodded, teasing at solemnity at the decision, and Madzie took his hand without hesitation when he offered it, standing back up as she did. 

~

Mixing a small child with Jace did not seem like the best of plans long-term, and Magnus was nothing short of overjoyed when Madzie proved to fit with Catarina like a glove. Magnus could not help but admit, however, that he would miss finding Alec and Madzie in the Lion, flowers woven into intricate braids that Alec had learned how to do for his sister and Madzie was more than happy to allow him to "practice" on her. 

The first night that Madzie was fully moved-in with Catarina, Magnus and Alec found themselves alone together, dinner laid out between them as it had been done every night that Madzie was there, as if neither of them could stop the habit of laying out "family" dinner, even with the piece that brought that change about no longer among them. 

"I...I don't think I've ever been more terrified as I was when I couldn't get eyes on you in there." Alec told Magnus softly. "I watched him open the rift before he stepped into that spell circle with her..." 

Alec's head was bowed as he made the admittance, and Magnus reached out to take his hand from his own grasp as he worried at the skin in the soft of his thumb. Magnus felt himself on a precipice, the dread curled around his heart almost smothered by the urge to ease at least some of the lingering fear. Alec had asked him, when they'd gotten Madzie settled in, to put a sound dampening spell on his room: not wanting her to hear if he had a nightmare, or a panic attack. And while Magnus had, he'd carried with him the knowledge that Alec had gone back into the field for him; had had his back and was willing to suffer the consequences of that choice gladly because it'd meant endangering Magnus's life not to. 

Magnus took a deep breath, knowing that he couldn't ask for secrecy if Alec decided it was too awful to allow him to walk free with the power he had. And Magnus had made his choice a long time ago, he realized; around the time that he had seen a Shadowhunter brought nearly to tears in his longing not to be a part of the world he grew up in. 

"When I tell you that you do not need to be afraid for me, Alexander, I am telling you the truth," Magnus began, cradling Alec's hand in his own and feeling every beat of his own heart in his chest, waiting for Magnus to be the one to tear it out once again, "I'm sure Isabelle has gotten all the information the Clave has on me, but that's...that's not even the tip of the proverbial iceberg." Alec was looking at him now, and in a strange twist to them, Magnus was the one who could not bring himself to watch the horror the would, inevitably, dawn on Alec's face. "I don't--I can't tell even warlocks this. Catarina is one of the very few who does not hate me for it. I am the son of Asmodeus, the former King of Edom. Prince of Hell.

"I...I killed him, Alexander. And in doing that, I took on his power." Distantly, Magnus had the strange thought that he was surprised that Alec's warm hand was still cradled between his now-cold ones. He couldn't hear anything over the beating of his heart and the rushing of his ears, and he hoped that this strange numbness would hold. "Edomai demons can't cross onto this plane any more, because I destroyed Edom, and them with it. All Edom's power belongs to me, as its King. So when I tell you that you don't have to be afraid for me...it's because you should be afraid of me." Magnus dragged his eyes up to Alec's face with that last, but he found that Alec was not disgusted or afraid. Alec looked like a storm trapped in a man's skin; his jaw set and his brows furrowed in all the intensity of the feelings that Magnus could not read. Alec slid from his chair, letting Magnus keep his hand even as Alec pushed Magnus's own chair back so that he could kneel in front of it, sitting on his haunches. 

The hand not already held in his played along Magnus's rings, and when Alec lifted Magnus's knuckles to his lips again, Magnus felt as if he'd fallen from a twelve-storey building. "I'm not afraid of you, Magnus." Alec looked up at him, the honesty written in every line of his face choking the life out of Magnus. "I don't think I could ever be afraid of you." Alec's thumb traced just under Magnus's lower lip, and Alec's softened expression hardened once more, "But...the people you've trusted with this? Who have given you this idea that you can't tell anyone, even your friends? I'd like to show them it's not you that they should fear; when it comes to breaking your heart, it's me that they should be terrified of." 

Alec raised himself to his knees, kissing a tear leaking from Magnus's eye before he fleetingly kissed just the corner of Magnus's mouth, settling back and drawing Magnus's hands to his attentions again. 

"Heliotrope," Alec recited, tracing the tendons of the back of Magnus's hand with first his fingers, then his lips, "red tulip, white heather, white wisteria, red lily, aster, jasmine..." Alec looked up at him, his smile teasing, eyes painfully hopeful, and Magnus wanted, so badly, to know what it was Alec was saying. "Red rose."

That one, Magnus knew, and Alec laughed as Magnus tipped himself out of his chair and practically fell into him, the momentum carrying Alec back to the floor, one of Magnus's hands laid curved behind it as if to cushion the landing, but Alec was far too practiced for that act of protection to be necessary. 

Looking up at him, Alec took a slow breath, pressing his thumb to the corner of Magnus's mouth that still tingled with the memory of his lips. Alec licked his lips, shifting beneath Magnus so that they were both comfortable, Magnus suspended above him in the tumult of awe that had caught him up short. "Here I was, thinking I wasn't exactly being subtle." 

Magnus huffed, caught between hysterical laughter and tears, and Alec finally urged him down, slowly, both somehow still tentative and savouring the breath before their lips touched at the same time. Alec gave him that tiny smile, and Magnus finally, _finally_ allowed himself the chance to taste it.

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the flower meanings I got from [here](https://www.flowermeaning.com/), apart from heliotrope, which means eternal love and devotion. 
> 
> And for anyone curious: Alec does ask Magnus to give him a tattoo. They get matching ones, actually: and it is the only visible tattoo Magnus has with his fashion choices. They get white myrtle, on the backs of their left hands, for good luck in their marriage.
> 
> Edit: the hyperlinks should work now, and hopefully editing this does not result in everything disappearing again.


End file.
